reflectionguidelines

Reflection Guidelines
Your portfolio should include a final statement synthesizing and reflecting on what was learned throughout the course. Create a short document articulating a considered response to project activities that are included in your portfolio. After working hard on something, you learn more if you stop and think about what you did. It is a way to consolidate your gains. Reflection helps you integrate your recent activities with your less recent experiences. It also helps you integrate your experiential learning with course content gleaned from readings, lectures and other sources. Writing down a reflection provides you with a record of what you learned--you can go back and review it years later when you need inspiration.
Your reflection paper should address all of the following:

• A summary of your portfolio
• Your self-evaluation of the progress you have made throughout the course
• Reflections
  • Lessons learned
  • Difficulties you encountered and the conclusions you have reached as a result
  • Successes you achieved and the new insights you have gained from achieving them
  • Things you would do differently next time and why
  • Interesting ways your experience relates to previous course work --especially unexpected or conflicting results
  • Strong emotions you experienced and why

Things you should NOT do in your reflection include:

• Spending most of the time summarizing what you did
• Stating mere reactions such as "I enjoyed this," "This was interesting," "This was frustrating," and "I would use this process again," without explaining the reason for certain reactions
• Complaining about external conditions that kept you from doing your best. Do not use the reflection to make excuses for your performance; instead, focus more on the choices you have made.